Red Wings Links: Time for Valtteri Filppula's star to shine

AP PhotoRed Wings forward Valtteri Filppula must establish himself as a star player this season.

The Hockey News's Rory Boylen suggests that Red Wings forward Valtteri Filppula's a strong candidate to break out this year, and at a salary of $3 million per season, his future with the Wings definitely hinges upon his 2010-2011 performance [The Hockey News]

Red Wings coach Mike Babcock suggested to the Free Press's Helene St. James that the Wings' other " question marks," Jimmy Howard and Chris Osgood, must play well for the Wings to succeed [Detroit Free Press]

In the foreign-language cateogry, the third chapter of Pavel Datsyuk's Q and A session with Sportbox.ru readers includes an ultimate compliment for former Wings captain Steve Yzerman [Sportbox.ru via Snapshots]

Andreas Lilja also admitted to Helsingborgs Dagblad's Daniel Rooth that he has yet to receive a contract offer from any team other than the Red Wings [Helsingborgs Dagblad via Snapshots]

As the Ilya Kovalchuk ruling continues to reverberate in the hockey world, Forbes' Kristi Dosh and In Lou We Trust's John Fischer attempted to make sense of the CBA's contradictory rules regarding reviewing contracts and deputy commisioner Bill Daly's laywer-speak garble about the "bright lines" which define contractual limits [Forbes, In Lou We Trust]

Finally, Yahoo Sports' Sean Leahy asked me if I could posit the Detroit Red Wings' version of "Mount Puckmore," and I picked Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom as the representative faces of the franchise over the course of the 4 championships won during the early 50's, the dismantling of the team by Jack Adams and its descent into the "Dead Wings" era, Mike Ilitch and Jimmy Devellano's renaissance and the establishment of Hockeytown, and the modern-day Wings' emphasis on puck-moving defensemen in the present and future tense under Ken Holland and Mike Babcock [Yahoo Sports]